Autumn’s a lovely season, blessed with warm golden colours and sometimes graced by unexpected sunshine. It’s also the time of year when we celebrate that most English of fruits, The Apple.

We have TWO Apple Days in Queen Edith’s (please tell me if you know of more!): one at Rock Road Library Garden and one at the Rock Allotments in Baldock Way.

Both the library and the allotments events had apple presses for juicing apples, plus a good selection of apples to taste. Juicing apples by hand is hard work: you need a lot of apples for what seems like a small amount of juice. The results are worthwhile – though drink the juice quickly while it’s fresh.

I enjoyed tasting some apple varieties I hadn’t even heard of. For example, this morning at the allotments I discovered the Histon Favourite, raised by John Chivers — of Histon.

The other fun today was judging the Rock Allotments scarecrow competition. Have you noticed these fearsome characters who have appeared in the allotments this week? What crow would even dare thinking about nibbling an apple with one of these fearsome characters on guard?

Councillors have to take hard decisions, and this was a tough one. In the end I had to go for Elsa the Fairy Scarecrow, produced by Raewyn, aged 4. Raewyn’s even donated some of her shoes to Elsa, as well as her sunglasses. And that magic wand will certainly keep any avian marauders away.

The Allotments Society has grand plans for the coming months as they prepare to celebrate their centenary, with a 1918 allotment in preparation, to show what people used to grow a hundred years ago. Watch this space!

 

 

 

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